"Her Freedom Was The Price Of Her Testimony" — Defense Attorney Bob Motta On Cross-Examining Juliana
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
True Crime Today
3.3 • 911 Ratings
🗓️ 14 January 2026
⏱️ 21 minutes
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Summary
Juliana Peres Magalhaes is the only reason the prosecution has a case against Brendan Banfield. She's also a woman who lied for a year, flipped when she got a deal, and wrote from jail that she was "heartbroken" for what she was doing to the man she says she helped commit murder.
Defense attorney Bob Motta joins Hidden Killers to explain how you tear apart a star witness whose credibility is already in shreds.
Juliana's sentencing is scheduled after Banfield's trial — to ensure she continues to cooperate. She pleaded to manslaughter. She gets time served. She gets deported to Brazil. Motta explains how you make a jury understand what she bought with her testimony and what it cost her to say the words prosecutors needed to hear.
The prosecution is framing Juliana as a reluctant participant who was told it was "too late to back out." Motta dismantles that narrative and explains what the defense should be highlighting instead.
Juliana maintained the home invasion story for a full year before changing it. How do you frame that for jurors? Is she a liar who finally told the truth — or a liar who upgraded to a better lie when the price was right?
Motta identifies the biggest mistakes defense attorneys make when cross-examining cooperating witnesses — and what Banfield's team needs to avoid. He explains how to weaponize the jailhouse letter and what happens to the prosecution's case if Juliana falls apart on the stand.
#BrendanBanfield #JulianaPeresMagalhaes #HiddenKillers #BobMotta #DefenseAttorney #StarWitness #CrossExamination #AuPairMurder #PleaDeal #MurderTrial
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Bruske, Stacey Cole, and Todd Michaels. |
| 0:08.0 | Juliana Perez-Megales is the prosecution's entire case. Without her, they have a digital |
| 0:14.0 | forensic expert who contradicts their theory, a timeline that took 19 months to produce charges |
| 0:20.4 | in a trial of reassigned investigators. |
| 0:23.4 | With her, they have someone who says Brendan Banfield, planned double murder, and handed her a gun. |
| 0:29.9 | But here's what the jury needs to know. |
| 0:31.6 | Juliana spent a year in jail facing murder charges, telling police the same story Brendan did. |
| 0:37.0 | Then she got a deal, pled to manslaughter, got time served, go home to Brazil. |
| 0:42.3 | Her sentencing is scheduled after Banfield's trial to make sure she keeps cooperating. |
| 0:47.8 | And from jail, she wrote her mother that she was heartbroken for what she was doing to Brendan and that she still loved him. |
| 0:55.6 | I find that to be a very interesting piece of this case. |
| 1:00.3 | Bob Mata Defense Attorney, host of the podcast Defense Diaries is with us to break this down. |
| 1:05.7 | How big of a piece of the puzzle do you think that is going to be in the minds of a jury showing that sort of a mindset that she's heartbroken, that she hates, that she's doing this? |
| 1:15.9 | And I'm paraphrasing her words here, but this is what she basically said to her mom, that she hates that she's doing this. |
| 1:21.5 | But she wants to get back home. |
| 1:24.7 | She wants to get back to mom. |
| 1:27.2 | That's what she said in some of those letters. I'm guessing |
| 1:30.0 | the prosecution may not have seen those coming. How impactful do you think that's going to be |
| 1:36.5 | in terms of lining up her credibility with reality? I think they're very powerful, you know, |
| 1:43.9 | because, I mean, at that point in time, she's, |
| 1:46.2 | she's writing them under the concept that no one's going to be privy to them. |
| 1:51.1 | Mm-hmm. |
... |
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